Medusa 4?

[TED7]

I noticed CAD Schroer have a free 'personal' verion of Medusa4 up for download on their website. I use Draftsight at home and frankly I hate it (mainly because Im not used to it) but find Medusa 2000 (which I use for modifying 2d drawings at work) brilliant.

Has / does anyone use Medusa4 and is it worth the effort installing it as a replacement?

Link:

http://www.cad-schroer.com/Software/MEDUSA4/CADFreeware/r/131/

Designer of machine tools - user of modified screws

 

[MikeHalloran]

Never heard of it. Please let us know how well it works for you, should you decide to try it.


Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[JohnRBaker]

Medusa, now that's a blast from the past...

This is one of the oldest, as well as perhaps one of the most obscure CAD products out there. I wasn't even aware that it was still around (last I heard anything about it was reading that it had been sold by PTC to some German company 10 years ago or so). Well you have to admit, Medusa may actually hold the record for being the longest surviving CAD software product that has managed to retain both it's basic niche and IT's NAME (our product, NX, is almost as old as Medusa, but it no longer carries its original name, Unigraphics).

That being said, over the years around the CAD industry there was always the stories about the 'curse of Medusa' in the sense that not long after a company would acquire the Medusa product line that it would find itself falling on hard times and simply surviving would become a struggle. Now I don't say this to take anything away from the software itself. It was always seen as an easy to use and effective product in what was then referred to as the 2-1/2D market, more than a simple 2D drafting product, but not a full fledged 3D modeling package either. From looking at the above website it would appear that Medusa is still addressing the needs of this same 'market space'.

Anyway, for anyone interested in the history of Medusa and its wondering past, go to:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MEDUSA

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Design Solutions
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA

http://www.siemens.com/plm

UG/NX Museum:

http://www.plmworld.org/p/cm/ld/fid=209

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[MikeHalloran]

Oh, _that_ Medusa.
What a blast from the past.
Registered for the free download, then the site went down for maintenance.


Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[TED7]

Blimey, you two make me feel young. "Blast from the past" for me is ACAD 2004 and CRT monitors. I got the maintenance problem as well, will keep trying every now and again.

Designer of machine tools - user of modified screws

 

[MikeHalloran]

Just reloaded, and got a start on downloading the Linux version, 237Mb distributed as a .sh file.



Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[MikeHalloran]

Got it loaded under Fedora14 and started noodling around.
Basics seem to work okay.
It thinks my laptop screen is quite a bit larger than it actually is; so far the setting to change that has eluded me.


Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[TED7]

I noticed it was back online around midnight (GMT) but I'm still to rescue my Suse install after Windows 8 fudged it. Will give it a shot tonight. Here's to hoping it's not too different from the version PTC released.

Designer of machine tools - user of modified screws

 

[MikeHalloran]

It hasn't blown up.
It seems to have a lot of functionality.
It looks like it's not going to be usable on this 1024x768 laptop screen.




Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[TED7]

Mine hasn't died on me either after drawing some basic rivet tooling. They have solved some minor issues I have with PTC's attempt and it seems to be more responsive than Draftsight as well, although it has retained the "you have to refresh the screen by yourself" feature.

Groups are not as easy as 'Clumps' were in the former version though. Or I just don't adapt to change very well.

Its a shame they don't have the marketing clout Dassault have with Draftsight. Would make a nice competitor for home use.

I also don't have a screen issue with mine.

Designer of machine tools - user of modified screws